A little over two months ago, we published a recording of a phone call between Bills then-general manager Buddy Nix and Buccaneers GM Mark Dominik. A couple of 20-year-olds had shared with us the fruits of their ingenious prank, wherein they called the Bills' switchboard as Dominik (looking to speak to Nix), hung up, then eventually connected a relentless Nix to Dominik, and listened as a third party. Both bosses talked a bit about free agency, trades, and Ryan Fitzpatrick's impending release. It was fairly innocuous stuff, a time-tested trick earning yuks at the expense of self-serious football men.

But today William Hochul, the Buffalo-born-and-educated U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, seemed to suggest that the prank did not seem so innocuous on his end: Joshua Barber and Nicholas Kaiser, both 20 and of Plymouth, Mass., were charged with intentionally intercepting a wire communication and with making a telephone call without disclosing their identity with the intent to annoy or harass the person at the called number. The charges carry maximum penalties of five years in prison and a $500,000 fine.